Congress Should Vote and Say No to Obama’s New War

President Obama’s war on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is modeled
on the U.S. war against Serbia in 1999 to essentially detach its province of Kosovo
– in which the United States acted as the air force for the Kosovo Liberation
Army group. This model was also used more recently in Libya to provide air power
for Libyan rebel groups that overthrew Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Yet despite
these tactical "successes," this model of pairing U.S. air power with
local ground forces is likely to fail against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

The difference is that in Kosovo and Libya, the United States was supporting
guerrilla groups against governments of countries; in Iraq and Syria, the United
States is fighting against an opponent that is mainly a guerrilla force. Governments
tend to provide better targets for U.S. air power – visible troops and armor,
fixed installations, and leadership and command nodes – than guerrillas, who
can blend back into the civilian population. ISIS does have some of these targets
but ultimately can rely mainly on its ability to disappear into relatively friendly
Sunni Arab populations in both countries. In counterinsurgency warfare against
guerrillas, President George W. Bush found out that his strategy of "offense
is the best defense," which may work at times against nation-states, is
abysmally ineffective against guerrillas.

As I note in my book, The
Failure of Counterinsurgency: Why Hearts and Minds Are Seldom Won, history
shows that fighting effectively against un-uniformed, irregular guerrillas is
extremely difficult; to entertain any chance of winning, paying attention to
political factors is far more important than heeding military ones. That is,
the most important objective should be to win away the loyalty of the local
population – which provides supplies, fighters, and sanctuary to the guerrillas
in their midst – from the insurgents. Historically, many great powers have tried
winning the "hearts and minds" of indigenous populations by, for example,
providing development aid, bribes to leaders and factions, and even candy to
children. In the end, however, a foreign occupier or meddler rarely receives
the benefit of the doubt among the locals. In the end, only removing the underlying
grievance causing the insurgency will dampen or extinguish it. Sunni Arabs in
Iraq and Syria support the brutal ISIS group, because they have been oppressed
by Shi’ite-affiliated governments in both countries. Also in general, Islamic
peoples are tired of the many U.S. government (and other non-Islamic) political
and military interventions in Islamic nations.

So until these grievances are removed or significantly mitigated, ISIS will
survive and may even continue to thrive. At any rate, another U.S. (non-Islamic)
preventive war in the Middle East is the last thing that is needed and will
likely cause radical Islam to become more virulent. For example, when then-President
George W. Bush invaded Iraq, his own intelligence agencies and outside analysts
all noted the spike in terrorism in response. In the case of ISIS, the group
began its heinous beheading of Americans and Brits (America’s closest ally)
in retaliation for the commencement of U.S. bombing of the group.

Of course, Osama bin Laden rejoiced at George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq and
actually said that Bush was very easy to bait to do things that helped al Qaeda
get more money and recruit more fighters. Similarly, ISIS seems ecstatic in
goading the superpower to ramp up a public crusade against it. Despite U.S. vows
of escalation to degrade and destroy the group, ISIS has continued its grisly
beheading of hostages. It is ironic that these beheadings seem to have fueled support for Obama’s new war in the United States, given that the “moderate” Free Syrian Army (FSA) group, for which the United States is augmenting support, has also beheaded people. There is ample evidence that some in the FSA, and in the U.S.-allied Kurdish peshmerga militias in Iraq, are as ruthless at ISIS. Besides, FSA fighters
in Syria are often mixed in with al Qaeda fighters on the battlefield, which
was why Obama originally was reluctant to give them too much assistance. A few beheadings
by ISIS don’t change this basic problem. And they don’t change the fact that
the United States spent eight years training the Iraqi army, only to see U.S.
weapons fall to ISIS when that army turned and ran.

Not having reliable allies on the ground in either Iraq or Syria to fight ISIS
severely limits the applicability of the Kosovo and Libya models to the current
situation. A friendly ground force needs to locate targets for U.S. air power,
"fix" enemy forces on the ground for air strikes to have the maximum
effect, and occupy ground abandoned by the enemy. The effectiveness of U.S. air
power is lessened substantially without such dependable allies below, and the
chance of a successful American war against ISIS is therefore greatly diminished.

That’s the bad news. But the good news is that ISIS is only a regional threat,
not a threat to U.S. territory. ISIS does not have the networks of operatives
in the West or the bomb-making capability that al Qaeda does. U.S. intelligence
is not even sure that ISIS wants to attack the United States; its main goal
has been to establish an Islamic state in Iraq and Syria. The twelve Americans
that are fighting for ISIS can best be handled by the FBI or the Department
of Homeland Security, instead of the U.S. government merely creating more terrorists
hostile to the United States by a very public bombing campaign against ISIS.
Public wars on terrorism help politicians – such as George W. Bush and Barack
Obama – show that they are doing something about a problem, but more effective
actions against terrorists are best done quietly. More important, U.S. authorities
should demand that reluctant regional allies, who should be more threatened
by ISIS’s ascendancy than is the United States, accept the responsibility for
the long-term degradation of ISIS – either through the use of their own forces
on the ground or by the training of friendly local forces in Iraq and Syria.

Lastly, the most unobtrusive but pernicious effect of Obama’s war may be on
the U.S. Constitution. Ironically, he has asked Congress for $500 million to give
weapons to the Free Syrian Army but not to approve the more drastic action of
attacking ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Obama claims that Congress’s authorization
of the use of military force after the 9/11 attacks and its later authorization
to invade Iraq already allow him to attack Iraq and Syria. Congress approved
attacking Iraq way back in 2003, and the framers of the Constitution didn’t
intend to allow the chief executive to attack a country in perpetuity. Also,
the authorization to use military force against the 9/11 attackers was specifically
restricted to those perpetrators, not al Qaeda regional affiliates or splinter
groups – that is, ISIS. So Obama’s new war in Iraq and Syria has not been congressionally
sanctioned and is therefore illegal and unconstitutional. Instead of ducking
a vote during an election year, members of Congress should demand a vote and then say "no"
to what likely will be another unneeded, failed, and counterproductive war in
the Islamic world.